Meet Hugo

The blur of fur. He's my adopted year-old Golden, from the local rescue.

Healing after Cassie is still slow. I know Hugo won't replace her. Nothing can. But this boy needed love and a home and I have both to give. My son adores him and so do I.

Soon, we'll start obedience training. Though I don't know too much of his history (as is the case with most rescues), we can tell he was probably bullied by another dog. But my goodness, he's sweet-natured. I can't believe his first owner didn't want him. Their loss. Our gain.

Hugo's tall, gangly, awkward and has a short attention span -- like the typical teenager. He hoards tennis balls and is wonderful to take on walks. He sleeps by the side of the bed and wakes in the morning with his tail beating the floor, wanting much petting. He kisses profusely and loves hugs. His eyes get both sad and hopeful, all the same time. He lives to have you talk to him, touch him or just appreciate that he's there. The poor thing is underweight, but good food will fix that.

He craves closeness. Whoever's on the move, he's there as a shadow. Doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, he's there. Wherever Conor goes, he has an escort. And if we're off in two different directions, Hugo's torn. Who to follow?

In short, Hugo is part of the family. And we're so happy to have him.

Trip Interlude: Squirrels are suicidal

What is it about these little creeps?

I was speeding (yes, speeding -- and I have the ticket to prove it) out of the Owens Valley into Death Valley. There wasn't a single car there other than me. And then waaaaaay up ahead, I saw the little speck dart to the middle of the road. So I took my foot off the gas. I gripped the wheel. I was closing in fast, and I didn't know how this was going to work out.

If I hit it, I'd turn it into a smear. If I swerved, I'd run the risk of going off the road.

So I began cursing at it.

"Get OFF the ROAD you lousy little son of a BITCH. Get OFF. DON'T make me KILL you, YOU STUPID STUPID MOTHERCOCKSUCKING BASTARD."

Like that would work.

And then it skittered back to the very center of my lane.

Very carefully, I aligned the car. Fine. If the damn thing had a death wish, I was going to help out as little as possible (you thought I was going to try to smush it, didn't you?). Instead, I set up to straddle the little beast. At 60 miles an hour. He stayed perfectly still and beadily watched me bear down on him. I held my breath, white-knuckled the steering wheel and whoosh! I was over and past him.

And when I looked into my rearview mirror, I saw his fuzzy gray body airborne and rolling like a frickin' stock car that got bumped and lost it in the turn. The tail whipped like one of those jaunty corkscrew windsocks.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. After all, I didn't know if I'd saved him, killed him, or -- now that I think about it this is worst of all -- maimed him and left him to die in the road.

Best intentions gone astray, I believe. But it was him or me. And I had the car.

Poor little shit.

Two-and-a-half cases (Part 1 of the trip)

Wine. That's how much I brought home on Sunday, not how much I drank.

I think I may have only been personally responsible for half a case, between tastings and dinners and such. Not to mention the post-golf beers and the vodka tonics.

Zowie.

Before I get into some of the specifics, I have to endlessly praise three vineyards: Terre Rouge/Easton, Twisted Oak, and Hatcher. Oh, there was much loveliness in their cool, damp, dim tasting rooms. If you can find any of their beauties on your local wine list, by all means drink up. You won't go wrong.

If you're interested in more detailed recommendations, drop me a line. I'll be happy to point you toward the real goodies.

Miles and I took off on Thursday morning and drove up US-95 through the dicey Nevada ex-boomtowns of Beatty, Goldfield and Tonopah. Each has its mining past, and each is now populated with hangers-on with very little to hang on to. Don't get me wrong. I've seen many small towns, past their prime, where I would love to live. In these Nevada towns, though, the air is hot, dusty, and there's little interest in preserving their rich histories. On each main drag, the century-old hotels were side-by-side with rundown cottages and dirt lots filled with rusted-out junk.

It was so sad, and so Nevada. Out of all the places I've been, Nevada (because of all its open space, maybe? is everything here disposable because you can just pick up and go somewhere nicer and newer?) is the least interested in preservation. Las Vegas implodes its old buildings. The rural towns just let time do its work.

Out of Tonopah, we began climbing. Mountain ranges seemed to come, one after another. One was full of yucca trees. Another was studded with gorgeous, indestructible Bristlecone pines. Not long after, we were heading up to Tioga Pass and over into Yosemite.

Here's how much of a National Forest geek I am: even those brown signs with place names and arrows make me happy. "Tuolumne Meadows," "Tenaya Lake," "Tamarack Flat," all in that soothing, rich cocoa color. It couldn't have been more than 80 degrees outside, and Miles and I gratefully rolled down our windows. Forest air is one of my favorite things of all. Cool, dense, fresh . . . so lovely. I pulled out the camera and wildly snapped photos. We'll have to see if any came out. I do think I was able to catch the backside of Half Dome.

Once out of the park, it was another haul to hook up with Highway 49, the road that cuts through the middle of Gold Country.

49? Get it? 49ers? Ha.

Gold Country landscape is really strange. Very hilly -- hills are rolling all over the place -- and every hill is covered in a combination of these things: tall, golden grasses; bright green vineyards; scrubby trees; horses; and cows. Honestly, with those crazy gold grasses, the whole region looks like tinder. And yet, this is some of the richest ground anywhere. It's dark, fragrant and fertile.

I noticed this when I saw the gardens in each little town. Everything was flowering -- the shrubs, the trees, vines clinging everywhere –- all these colors just popping out. For a desert girl, this is exotica.

So it's no wonder I love this area. Each old mining town has tried to preserve its historic district. Now, the tiny buildings house shops and antique stores and restaurants. They thrive. And in every spare corner, dripping from every fence, hanging from the rooftops, something is alive and growing and gorgeous.

Later that evening, I stood outside the back door of the Iron Horse Saloon in Sonora. The hills rose above town and I could see a brick-red church steeple. Those golden grasses were even more, well, golden. The trees were dark, whispery greens. There was, of all things, a "Shannon's Barber Shop" across the street right next door to a wine bar, and I had a nice, easy buzz on.

And that's how we started our vacation.

I'm leaving

Again, you ask? But Shannon, dearest, you just got back.

Oh, but this time I'm going on a little trip. Tomorrow morning, Miles and I will be taking my little Honda Fit up to Sonora, CA. This is Gold Country, where all the 49ers came to make their fortune. Today, there's less mining and more wining.

(groan)

Every year, we head up to this lovely part of the world, covered in small towns and small Zinfandel wineries, for a golf tournament called the Wine Bottle Open. The tournament is, thank heavens, a Best Ball format. Which means that I don't have to play my real score. Which is often un-countable because, at the more difficult times during the round, I'll pick up my ball and throw it where it's supposed to go. It's really more efficient that way, even if it is illegal.

The main point of the weekend is to go on wine tastings in an area much more laid-back than Napa, drink in some 150-year-old saloons, and hang out with a lot of good people.

So off I go. Back Sunday. Regaining consciousness Monday.

Have a great weekend.

Can't. Stop. Laughing.

Like, Oh My GAWD!

I'm famous.

Not FAMOUS famous. Not even mildly famous. But I have an IMDB credit for my work on my friend Michael's short film.

It's screening at CineVegas this week, so on Wednesday afternoon, I'll be sitting in a movie theater cringing at the sound of my own voice, reproduced in big, blazing surround. Wheeeeeee!

You can check out more on the movie here:

The Bet main page

The Bet MySpace page

Anything happen while I was gone?

Two weeks ago, my laptop took a big, steaming dump. Stupid thing.

Much as I would have LOVED to just buy a new one, such things aren't possible. But, Apple was nice about it (shockingly enough). For a flat fee of $300, I got a new logic board and a new AirPort card -- repairs that, if I'd tried to have some "authorized reseller" do them, would have cost me almost $1,000.

Sometimes, when something sucks to a much smaller degree than you anticipated, you can feel really lucky.

And now I'm here, on my couch, happily typing away.

Normalcy is seeping back. Boy, am I happy to see it.

Hemangiosarcoma

That's the monster that took my Cassie from me this morning.

Her spleen had ruptured, and she'd been bleeding internally all night. She couldn't have withstood surgery. She was a 10-year-old Golden Retriever, and the breed's #1 killer is cancer.

She was my companion, my baby, and one of the largest joys in my life. At 10:30 this morning, she died with her head in my lap, much like she'd spent most of her time with me.

I've dealt with the death of people I loved. People who raised me. And yet, this pain is unsupportable. My pupski. My pain in the ass. My constant that, I always knew, wouldn't be so constant.

They go before you. I know that. But now, as I put away her food dishes, beds, bones and toys and struggle to sweep up all that blonde hair, I have a gaping wound inside me.

Here is a picture from just last year, after she'd laid in the backyard sprinklers and then came in to dry off. I laughed so hard. I loved her so much.



Goodbye, my girl.

The Art Director's Pain . . .

. . . set to music.

The Copywriter's equivalent? Exclamation points. Whenever something I wrote comes back from the client riddled with exclamation points (or, as we call them around my office, dog cocks), I want to scream.

For example, I'll do something like this:
The [insert hotel name here] invites you to shake your moneymaker for $300,000.

It'll come back like this:
The [insert hotel name here] invites you to shake your moneymaker for $300,000!!

Was the $300,000 not exciting enough before? And why two dog cocks? Does that literally double your excitement at the prospect of $300,000? Maybe getting you $600,000 worth?

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you don't need to scream at people to get your point across. And if you need to yell that loudly, then your product isn't that great to begin with.



So there!!

Um . . .

Listerine rinse recalled for contamination

Isn't this stuff supposed to KILL GERMS?

And so it begins

When Steve Sax threw out the first pitch and didn't throw it into the stands, you could tell it was going to be a long day.

So the Dodgers' opening weekend sweep of San Francisco was probably the last best moments of the whole season. At least I know what to expect.

sob

Get off my lawn

I'm 38 today.

Every year since the age of 33, as my birthday has approached, I've felt myself start to drag a little. Question myself more. Wonder who I am on a daily basis. I sleep less, because my mind churns every time the lights go out. And I wonder why that one day has made me feel that way.

It's not as if I'm a drastically different person on the morning of April 9th. My life has gone on, just as always. I get up. I work. I go home. My bills are still there. My dog still needs to be fed. There's still laundry to do and countertops to clean. Today is no different, except that today I get cake.

I've noticed more gray hair. They're those "resistant" grays that will soon require a professional color job, should I choose to keep hiding them. I seem to be buying better (or more expensive) eye creams. And I wonder when my attitude will start to reflect the number.

So far, it hasn't. I love to play video games and watch cartoons. I love devising semi-hazardous experiments using the microwave. I tell gross jokes and I laugh every time someone says "balls" or "box." Some of my t-shirts say things that would get me kicked out of PTA meetings. I burp, loudly, to make my son giggle. My last couple of book purchases have been Japanese manga and I've downloaded a lot more 70's punk rock lately.

Every birthday, the divide within myself seems greater. The older I get, the more I advance in my profession, the more responsible I become in society, the younger I act. Is this rebellion? Am I rebelling against myself or simply trying to be myself despite my age?

Every year, I try to just take a breath and let it be. But we all know that finding acceptance among others is much easier than finding it within yourself.

I'm happy to have this problem, really. As far as crises go, this one is mild. Its persistence drives me a little nutty, but I feel like the day I've reconciled the number with the attitude -- the day I begin to "act my age" -- I will have lost so much of who I am. I know that.

So, today, as I celebrate another birthday and look down the barrel of 40, I'm going to take a deep breath and let it be. And then have cake.

Something pretty

The days fly. At first there was only one, then two, which made a week, then two, and on until it's been more than a month. Where have I been? What has kept my attention? I could say, "life," and that would seem to explain it all. And yet, it hasn't seemed like enough. Especially today. When, after another mind-numbing day at work, another hurried dinner and more homework and laundry, I decide to go somewhere I haven't been in ages.

Poets.org

And I find out that one of my favorites is celebrating his hundredth birthday. Or at least he would, if he were still alive.

W.H. Auden.

I can't find the words to explain why I love his work so much. Especially since his words are so much better than my own.

The More Loving One
by W. H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Somehow, there should always be time for the pretty things: poetry, friendship, love. And yet those are the first things to go when you're just trying to get through a chain of days.

But today, there was time for something pretty. And I feel much more like myself again.

Decisions, decisions

I can't decide whether I'm still blogging or not. My posting certainly can't get more infrequent than this.

I could say that work's been in the way. And that's true. It's been terrifically busy here, but I used to be able to blog around it.

Honestly, I feel as if I've said too much about my family here. And the crappier this world gets, the more inclined I am to just take the ones dear to me and hide. There's a line there, somewhere, and I haven't found it. It's going to be a strange process, figuring out what I want this blog to be. I'm not stopping. But until I can post regularly, and be comfortable with what I'm saying out here, it's going to be pretty spotty.

For those that check in, thank you. I'm glad you've been here to offer your support and comments and humor. I'll still be at your places. Pints' Friday Fuck Off is an especially lovely spot.

Until then.

Shan

Tag, I'm it

From the marvelous Mr. Summers, a Merry Christmas meme:

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?

Hot chocolate, made the real way with Hershey's Cocoa, milk, vanilla extract and a large Kraft Jet-Puffed marshmallow. If there's a way to get a shot of bourbon into that, even better.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?

Santa wraps them, but does so in paper that doesn't prompt your five-year-old to say, "Hey, Mom. Santa uses the same paper you do."

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?

White lights on the tree, and large retro colored C9 lights on the house. On the treehouse, I prefer blue. For Hanukkah.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?

On Miles' belt buckle.

5. When do you put your decorations up?

Since I'm always off work the day after Thanksgiving and I can't wait any longer, I do most of it then. I have an awesome, single-girl, pre-lit plug-n-play tree. I could leave it up all year if I wanted, but I've been told that's a little much.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?

I'm a fan of the glazed, spiral-sliced ham accompanied by a chilled vodka martini with bleu-cheese-stuffed olives.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child:

It's more of a feeling than anything. I remember how those Christmas Eve nights felt, where I'd try and try and try to stay awake, even though I knew Santa wouldn't come as long as I wasn't sleeping, but I was always straining my ears for reindeer sounds and jingle bells. I always wanted PROOF of Santa. And then I'd fall asleep anyway, and wake up to presents.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?

My "best friend," who was a year older, told me. Bitch.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?

The kids do. Once I was past 12, the "night before" present stopped. But I let the boy open one on Christmas Eve, same as I did.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?

Since I have a cheater tree, the lights are already on it. But once it's plugged in, we hang the normal ball ornaments first, then the special ones, and the angel topping goes on last.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it?

What is this snow of which you speak? I live in Las Vegas. Always have. It's snowed here three times in my whole life, and none of those have been on Christmas.

12. Can you ice skate?

What is this ice of which you speak?

Kidding. It's weird, because I can ice skate. I can skate really well, forward and backward. Stopping, though, is a problem. That's what walls and rails are for.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?

When I was eight, I got a bike. It was the most rockin' bike ever made, too. It was pink, with a white banana seat, tassels on the handlebars and a white faux-wicker basket with plastic flowers on it. That bike was freedom to me. I tried to take it out front and ride it even before I'd unwrapped my other gifts. When I finally could take it for a spin, it wasn't long before I was jumping it off the curb.

Yeah. I was a tomboy.

14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you?

Love. Just the celebration of love, whether it's with my family or my friends. It's a time, for me, to realize the gifts we have. To me, the love of those closest to me is the best gift of all. And I love to give more than I receive.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?

My mother's candy cane cookies. They're cookies shaped like candy canes, made out of stripes of red and white dough and topped with crushed peppermint candy. My second favorite holiday dessert is Hickory Farms Beef Stick, hung from Miles' belt buckle.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Isn't it funny -- there are things we do every Christmas, but I don't really consider any of them to be traditions. Maybe I should start one. I wonder what I should do with Miles' belt buckle?

17. What tops your tree?

A golden-robed Victorian angel. Unlike Ken, I have no trouble stuffing shrubbery up an angel's ass.

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?

Definitely giving.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song?

Tonight, I was already talking about this! The Bing Crosby/David Bowie version of "Little Drummer Boy."

Peace on earth. Ba-rum-bumbum-bum.

20. Candy canes:

Totally lovely, especially when placed on Miles' belt buckle.

21. Favorite Christmas movie?

"A Charlie Brown Christmas." I love Linus' voice telling the Nativity story. It breaks my heart every time.

22. What do you leave for Santa?

Milk and candy cane cookies. It's the only time all year I'll actually drink a glass of milk.

Happy Birthday

To Miles.

My friend. My blessing. My Love.

Thank you for your laughter, your wit, your courage and your heart.

Thank you for the road trips and the Sunday barbecues and bottles of wine and quiet after-work nights on the couch. For pool and golf and Boulder City and Sinatra. For debate. For five-star dinners and chicken wings. For encouraging me to sing, to write, to be myself. For listening. For talking. For everything.

Thank you for you.

Snort

I am a virulent ball of goo.

Not three weeks after I had a flu shot, I have come down with what appears to be the fucking flu.

Flu. Goo.

Ew.

Salute

December 7. The day will forever live in infamy.

Today, my paper had a story that makes me both proud and amazed.

TIME TO REMEMBER

USS Nevada's Pearl Harbor ordeal recalled

Sixty-five years ago today, Woody Derby was sitting on his bunk aboard the USS Nevada finishing breakfast and reading a newspaper when a call blared from loudspeakers to man the battle stations.

"I said, 'What the hell do they want to do that on Sunday for?'" the 88-year-old former sailor recalled Wednesday about the historic Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the Nevada.

In minutes, "the hell" would happen when the first torpedo and bombs slammed the ship, the first of many more that the 27,500-ton battleship would endure. The ship later survived a pair of nuclear tests in 1946.

Derby, one of about 20 remaining survivors from the attack on the Nevada at Pearl Harbor, spent seven years and two months aboard the ship.

In a telephone interview from Honolulu, he said he will place a wreathe [oh, for heaven's sake, can't you people spellcheck? - s.] today to commemorate the day. He is proud to note that the Nevada is the only ship in the Navy that was present for both the Pearl Harbor attack and D-Day, June 6, 1944, off Utah Beach, for the Normandy invasion.

But it was Pearl Harbor, the ship's home port, that became Derby's yardstick for measuring death and destruction.

"There was tremendous damage," he said about a torpedo that struck near his turret. "We had water up to our waists, and it was still rising."

His battle station was below deck of a magazine that shot 5-inch shells, not ones designed for knocking out Japanese warplanes. Nevertheless, "they said send up ammunition. They wanted live ammunition, and we started gunning it up."

"We were hit by seven bombs and many near-misses from all the planes coming in," he said. "It was a desperate time."

In a heroic effort to avoid sinking in the harbor and becoming an obstacle, the Nevada steamed to beach itself in shallow water.

Derby, who at the time was a 23-year-old from Wapello, Iowa, spent much of the day on the third deck helping fight fires. That was not what he had expected he'd be doing when he joined the Navy on Dec. 7, 1938.

"Three years later was a bad day," he said.

"We moved right past the Arizona, which had blown up," he said. "The fire was so hot that when we went by, guys had to put their bodies on the ammunition and the shells that we were getting ready to fire to keep them from exploding." [emphasis mine]

Derby, who has stayed in shape over the years by running marathons -- 21 after age 58 -- said during much of the attack he was below deck and couldn't see what was happening.

Despite all the explosions, he said, "I wasn't scared because I didn't have time to be. The fire in the forward part of the ship was a very bad thing."

The Nevada, with the help of tugs, managed to make it to shallow water off Waipio Point.

"We beached it right next to the USS Shaw, which was hit by two bombs. .... (The Nevada) settled to the bottom," Derby said.

"That afternoon, about 4:30, they removed 57 bodies -- 50 sailors and seven Marines -- and 100 seriously wounded," he said.

Derby stayed with the ship while it endured salvage work and temporary repairs and steamed to the West Coast in April 1942. After a year in dry dock, the vintage-1916 Nevada, equipped with a new anti-aircraft gun battery, was off to combat again during the Attu landings in May 1943, according to the Naval Historical Center.

Derby said the ship's crew size grew from 1,350 sailors to 2,500. After the Attu landings the Nevada sailed to the mid-Atlantic where her guns pounded Normandy during the invasion in June 1944 and southern France two months later.

The ship returned to the Pacific to help with the Iwo Jima and Okinawa invasions in 1945. It endured a kamikaze attack on March 27, 1945 and an artillery shell on April 5, 1945.

After World War II, the Nevada was painted red, Derby said, and put at center stage among other dilapidated ships used in a pair of nuclear bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Though damaged and heavily tainted with fallout, it survived both the airdrop Able detonation on June 30, 1946 and the underwater Baker blast on July 24, 1946. A month later it was decommissioned.

"It sat radioactive hot for two years at Kwajalein," he said.

The USS Nevada was later towed to the deep waters southwest of Oahu and purposely sunk by gunfire and torpedoes on July 31, 1948.

All those boys. All that chaos. No matter how many accounts of the day I read, no matter how many times I read them, my amazement and respect are never diminished. What on earth compels a human being to throw his own fragile body over live ammunition to keep it from exploding in the heat? How would you even know to do such a thing?

Every day of that war saw acts of heroism. Some days inspired more than others. To salute every last one would take the rest of my life.

So today, I simply thank Woody Derby. And I thank all those who served with the Nevada. You helped make this world, imperfect as it may be, one that I am grateful for.

If it bleeds, and all that.

I may have mentioned this before, but I believe my local daily newspaper is absolute crap. Miles has a fabulous saying (it was actually something he said at his first agency job to his Creative Director, just before he was fired): "I wouldn't wipe my ass with that."

Maybe that's not something you say about a TV ad script that your boss wrote, but it's something I feel totally comfortable saying about my paper. Because I rarely get any news or insight. The "Nevada" section usually reads like a police blotter.

Except for today. Yesterday must have been pretty slow, death-wise. Going down the list on today's local page, the focus is on a nurse walkout, homeless issues, public health and updates on existing court cases. The editors must have been upset. Twitchy. Desperate, almost. They must have began to collectively sweat without the promise of a good police shooting or grisly murder-suicide. They were grasping - begging for something, anything to keep their readership up. Because really, they're the only daily paper in town - but given the choice between reading them and not reading at all, people seem to be opting for the second choice.

Then something caught the editors' beady eyes. It was Nevada-related. There was a tidy amount of death (either by vehicle or shooting) - 32 in just the last year. So they went with it:

Bears' death rate on rise around lake

Whew. Crisis averted. And hopefully, today will bring a fiery, multi-car, alcohol-related fatal crash that shuts down a major highway AND a bumfight that ends in a scuffle with police and a taser-related heart attack. If the news gods are good.

Boy, Britney's getting around.

Billboard Awards a spectacle of music, livestock

I'd encourage you to read the article, but my hometown newspaper is such a blazing piece of crap that they succeeded in making the night sound boring.